


Company

by ohmytheon



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Female Friendship, Found Family, Gen, Slice of Life, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23773282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: Nami is a curious thing.And Robin has always liked curious things.
Relationships: Nami & Nico Robin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Origamidragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/gifts).



> I've watched like 30 episodes of One Piece in the last four days, so you could say it's been on my mind. I love these two women so much. They're extremely important to me. I guess you could say this is also Nami/Robin if you squint, but I really just wanted to briefly focus on their friendship. Thanks, Jon, for sucking me into OP.

Nami is a curious thing.

Robin has always liked curious things. It’s in her nature. She can’t help but want to explore every depth, every facet, every cave, every little niche that makes up the world. Of course, she can’t always do that, so she’s learned not to become upset when something is out of her reach, the irony never lost on her. The world is so vast, far more than she could’ve ever imagined as a child, and she won’t live long enough to see all of it, but on the Going Merry and its odd crew, she can try.

With her navigating prowess and dreams of charting all the seas, Nami is similar in that respect. She covets every map, but she never takes them at face value, especially not in the Grand Line, learning to read between the lines and improves them. Temperamental as she might be, she understands that the sea is even worse. There’s no telling what challenges they’ll come up against on the open waters, in a foreign land, up in the sky, but she’ll weather them all the same for her dreams.

During her time on the run, Robin has met many pirates. She’s sailed with excellent navigators, talented swordsmen, incredible cooks, and miraculous doctors. She never made friends with them. There hadn’t seemed a point, no when she knew none of them could possibly understand her dream. Pirates are all much the same with their goals: wealth, power, adventure, respect, fear, glory. Some just like the thrill of fighting.

She’s hurt a lot of people in order to get where she is – pretended to be a monster in an attempt to travel back in time – but she’ll never understand enjoying the smell of death in the air. Some days, she wonders if there will ever truly be an end to her journey, and then she sits in a corner with a book and watches Nami chart the seemingly endless ocean, and she knows.

It’s not always about the end. Sometimes, it’s the steps it takes to get there.

She can understand Nami’s dream. She wants to make sense of the world. It’s not much different from Robin wanting to make sense of history.

A loud boom from outside rocks the ship, and only quick reflexes and the preternatural nature to know that havoc was bound prevented Nami from streaking a pencil line across her precious map. Clenching the pencil in her fist safely above the paper, Nami grits her teeth and fumes as laughter mixed with shouting follows another boom. It isn’t hard to guess that the rest of their motley crew is up to no good. The sea is exciting, but that excitement is often followed by long spells of boredom.

While the Straw Hat crew is by no means boring, even they must have their quiet lulls.

“What are those idiots up to now?” Nami growls, closing her eyes in a poor attempt to block the sounds out.

“Do you want me to stop them, Navigator?” Robin asks politely.

Nami startles, jerking upright and opening her eyes. “Wha–?” She spins around so fast that she almost falls out of the chair and gawks at Robin like she might be a ghost. It’s not the worst way someone has looked at her, not by a longshot, so she smiles faintly in return. “Robin! How long have you been there?”

“I was here when you came in,” Robin answers coolly.

“Ah! I didn’t even notice…” Nami works at her bottom lip, furrowing her brow in thought. It’s an unfortunate look on a girl so young. Not even twenty, and she carries the weight of navigating a ship in the Grand Line on her shoulders. It’s not an easy feat, one that tells Robin that Nami is a force to be reckoned with even if she always acts like she can’t fight and needs saving.

Robin closes her book. “Did you want me to leave?”

“No!” Nami exclaims, waving her hands frantically. “You weren’t bothering me – clearly. It’s those–” Another loud boom echoes in the air, followed by even more raucous laughter from their beloved captain, and Nami cringes, her trademark look of annoyance flashing across her face. “We finally have a bit of peace, so I thought I could work on my maps, but they just don’t know when to stop.”

“I’m not sure they understand the concept of peace,” Robin muses.

“And yet I bet Zoro is still sleeping through it,” Nami mutters, almost like she’s jealous. As the ship’s navigator, she isn’t permitted to sleep long periods, lest the ship goes off course due to the Grand Line’s fickle nature.

“Do you want me to take care of it?” Robin asks again.

Nami considers it for a moment, her eyes falling over the map, seeing things beyond the small cabin. When Sanji’s berating is heard over the laughter, she allows herself a small smile and closes her eyes, shaking her head. “No, it’s fine. If I can’t learn to work during strenuous circumstances, I’ll never get my work done.” Robin moves to stand, intending on leaving to give her space, but Nami waves a hand and says, “You can stay.”

Robin tilts her head. “I thought you preferred to work alone.”

“I don’t mind your company,” Nami says, a very faint pink tinge to her cheeks.

Nodding in understanding, Robin relaxes and picks up her book again. Taking a deep breath, Nami turns around and gets back to work, lining up a ruler and carefully scraping the pencil across the paper. It’s a nice sound, one that Robin has always found strangely soothing when taking notes of her own. Nami is a curious thing, and Robin quite enjoys the company of curious things too.


End file.
